INTERGEO 2008: Knowledge and Action for Planet Earth
After the devastating earthquake in China, the government is using images and evaluations from satellite pictures to coordinate the emergency services and rescue activities in many areas. In fact, it would be impossible to coordinate the activities of the rescue teams without these satellite images. This latest disaster on 12 May highlights once more just how important satellite observation and the geodata it generates is for environment issues and risk management. Immediate cross-national provision and preparation of satellite data for disaster relief was also the topic up for discussion when earth scientists met at the INTERGEO focus meeting at the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) in Frankfurt last Wednesday. It was the third time that the focus meeting was held in the run-up to INTERGEO. This year, the world's largest congress trade fair for geodesy, geoinformation and land management which takes place from 30 September to 2 October, 2008 in Bremen focuses primarily on the environment, satellite systems, flood protection and geocoaching.
As a result of the recent natural disasters in Burma and China, Professor Dietmar Grünreich used the focus meeting as an opportunity to highlight the global transformation resulting from climate change and land use. The President of the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy explained that the Earth's climate lies between that of Mars (too cold and too dry) and Venus (too hot and too dry) and that it is currently moving towards that of Venus. He stressed that the aim of any long-term climate policy must be to find a good course for planet Earth. Grünreich said, "We need early-warning systems, and for that we need geoinformation". A monitoring system is required to ensure reliable forecasts and a sustainable climate policy. GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) is an EU initiative aimed at providing permanent satellite images of the Earth. This independent Earth observation system has been up and running in Europe since 2003 and is financed by public funds (EU Commission, ESA). Core services (CS), such as Emergency Response CS, Marine CS and Land Monitoring CS (which supplies harvest forecasts, for example), are to be made available from autumn 2008. Corresponding services for the atmosphere and security are in preparation. The BKG supports this development by providing the geodetic reference system and the digital elevation model for Europe. Professor Dietmar Grünreich explained that the rescue work in the areas hit by the earthquake benefited from high-resolution satellite images from TerraSAR-X a German radar satellite that is part of the GMES project and the fast provision of data, mapping and evaluations supplied to the Chinese government and rescue organizations.
Bernhard Corr's presentation also focused on the fundamental importance of geodata for defending and providing relief against natural disasters, and criticized the inhomogeneous nature of the present approaches even within a single country. "We have around 1.8 million volunteers in Germany, but the problem is that they all come under different spheres of jurisdiction," explained Bernhard Corr at the third INTERGEO focus meeting. He proposed that the individual federal states and the central government work more closely together in order to harness the full potential of the various solutions. The head of division of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance called for further decentralization of the German Emergency Prevention Information System deNIS II plus. States and municipal authorities should be able to use deNIS II plus to create their own information systems with "clean interfaces", such as those already set up in Hamburg and Saxony-Anhalt.
Hagen Graeff, President of the INTERGEO organiser DVW e. V. and host of the focus meeting, emphasized the importance of providing basic geodata quickly, easily and system-wide ahead of the congress programme of INTERGEO from 30 September to 2 October, 2008 in Bremen, which will focus on environment and security. This will be particularly relevant in view of the importance of coastal protection at the venue's location. The difficulty lies in the scope and users, as Corr explained in the case of disaster protection. "There are some 50 different IT systems in the various states that is highly diverse." Corr called on the states to change their attitude in relation to disaster protection. He asked them to make it a top priority and invest more in this area. In choosing deNIS II plus, the government, he stated, had deliberately opted for a geographical information system because all the data required for defence is location-based.
Dr. Martin Lenk, Head of Business and Coordination for Germany's geodata infrastructure (BKG), praised the European Union's INSPIRE guideline as a "milestone in Europe towards creating an open information society". He said that INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) recognizes that the key to automated data usage lies in web services. With effect from 2010, the guideline aims to simplify the international utilization of spatial information using web-based services, such as addresses, land, traffic networks and conservation areas. As the point of contact for the European Commission, one of the BKG's responsibilities is to provide basic geodata. Government, science, business and citizens all stand to gain from the wide range of applications for spatial and Earth observation that can be generated from this data. The total economic volume of the overall development was discussed at INTERGEO 2007, and DVW President Hagen Graeff estimated the amount to be around EUR 900 million.
INTERGEO 2008 will be held in Bremen from 30 September to 2 October.
Internet: www.intergeo.de
